Category Archives: Competitions I’ve won!

The last few weeks have been very chaotic as myself and Mr Wills have been moving home. The place we moved to needs a lot of work, not heavy duty building. But everything needs a good scrub and (more than a few) licks of paint! I’m feeling in a ‘nesting’ mood as I have in my life been inclined to be a little nomadic, so I’m very busy trying to source just the right pieces of furniture at the right price. This is William settling in on the new leather corner sofa, purchased from a private seller on Gumtree for just £250. Bargain!

William settling in nicely!

So my apologies for the lack of posts during this busy time in my life. Luckily I haven’t hit a dry spell yet, even though I’ve only been comping for one or two hours a week since the move. I think my hard work and extra hours before is carrying me through! The biggest value prize since my last winspiration post was 2 tickets to the opera and a signed limited edition print worth £300. I also had one of those rare, but extremely welcome days, when the wins just keep coming. It was the week before my radio interview. Three wins from twitter: A £40 Voucher to spend at Giraffe, a beautiful bracelet from Beaverbrooks – also worth £40, and £50 in vouchers to spend in a local shopping centre…… and then on facebook: A breakfast in bed hamper, (muffins, jams, teas, coffee etc), from Bishops Move worth £30. So a very good day, wish all comping days were like that!

On Instagram the very next morning I had a fab win of a pair of GHDs worth £145. My other wins since the last post have been smaller items. But I’m still very happy this year, I’ve already reached over £2500 in prize value with over 9 months of comping left, woo hoo!

If you read my blog regularly you will know that experiences are prizes that especially appeal to me. I enjoy doing ‘different’ things, seeing new places, eating lovely food, and often being inspired. From a simple RT on twitter over the Christmas Advent period I won a Falconry experience for two at Coniston Hotel, in a very beautiful part of the world near Skipton. The prize was especially appealing as it included lunch to the value of £50.

I had no idea what to expect on the day, (except cold weather which didn’t let me down)! But I had the most fabulous time. I learned about the birds from a very experienced guide, and we got to handle an Owl, Harris Hawk…….. and a Golden Eagle. I think we were very lucky as this isn’t normally part of the day. There were a mixture of people on the experience, some who were thinking of taking up falconry, to others like myself who really just wanted to get closer to a bird of prey than normally allows. I have to say I was a bit nervous when the Eagle, (with a wing span of 6ft), swooped down at me. But afterwards I felt exhilarated.

If you do the experience please remember to wrap up warm. Standing out on a hillside for a few hours, in the English Countryside, in March, is freezing! But when the eagle landed it was soon forgotten, and then we headed off to spend our £50 on lunch. The hotel was superbly furnished with a splendid view in the dining room. We were led to a reserved table, and have to say the food and service could not be faulted. It was really a great day. And yes I did have a starter, main AND dessert!

I hope this post gives you winning inspiration. Please do share with me your wins on facebook, twitter or even instagram….. its great to hear your winning ways also!

Well, even though I’m a comping addict, I have to say I am glad the never ending Valentines day competitions are just about over. Being a singleton seeing so many hearts and flowers, and asking day after day to talk about how I met my partner, had worn a little thin. My (non-comping) best friend is also highly relieved. She was tagged so much I’m told she had to have her phone constantly on charge! But having had a little moan I still managed to enjoy a Valentines night out. I spotted a local competition for a Valentines meal package worth £70. It was on facebook and only had 2 entries, well I just couldn’t stop myself as usual. So my mum and I had quite a chuckle to ourselves and had a lovely evening with fabulous food, we had a trio of desserts to share that honestly were to die for.

Chocolate Overload at The Kyte Hotel, Pontefract

I have copied and pasted below all the wins I have had since my last Winspiration post in January. As you can see its definitely Twitter leading the way for me producing most wins.

The Ragdale Hall Spa Day for 2 is my favourite win of this batch, its a place I have hoped to visit for some time, (and it has a value of £174)! But honestly I’m so pleased with all my wins to date. I’ve been putting extra hours in and it has paid off, with my winning total now at almost £2000. I hope the rest of 2014 continues to be so kind to me. I had another Pinterest win from Superbreak which was great as I’ve only been creating boards for a couple of months. The prize was a suitcase filled with travel goodies, so my mission now is to win a holiday to get good use out of them.

My #SupeMyBreak Suitcase & Travel goodies from Superbreak

Twitter is coming up trumps for me at the moment, but where are you getting most of your wins so far this year? Please do share with me your wins on facebook, twitter or even instagram….. its great to hear your winning ways also!

January has been a busy month for me trying to fit in a number of wins from the festive season. Last week I had an amazing time at Topshop. I won a like and share competition on Facebook from a Leeds pub, The Botanist, to attend a personal shopper experience in the new shopping centre there, Trinity Leeds.

I was greeted by fedora wearing Lauren in the chicly styled white leather suite reserved for these appointments. Champagne in hand I was led to a room which had outfit after outfit specially selected for me, (as I had communicated with Lauren previously my fashion inspirations). I felt like a celebrity and Lauren was just amazing, she exactly had my style, gave me some useful tips, and picked out key looks for the season to keep me up-to-date in the fashion stakes! This is why I love my hobby as I don’t think I would have booked in for something like this, but it was really worthwhile and I recommend Lauren without a doubt.

Next I had a completely free night in London, (except for the trainfare to get me there). Both wins on twitter advent giveaways. The first being £50 to spend in Gourmet Burger Kitchen, from the N1 centre in Islington. I love there burgers but sadly as we had to eat later as well, (the hardship), we spent the prize on chips and prosecco. Must be the northerner in me! Their sweet potato fries are especially delicious I have to say.

Then for a mad dash on the tube as we headed for Piccadilly Circus. We walked towards Leicester Square and the venue Cafe de Paris. I’ve previously enjoyed some fun-filled nights in this establishment, dancing away ’til the early hours. A well-known nightclub it now opens its doors earlier for cabaret shows throughout the week. You can watch the show for a very reasonable price, but lucky us had the VIP dining package. We ate a splendid 3 course meal, shared a bottle of champagne, and had front row seats for the entertaining performance from the London Cabaret Society. Singers, comedians, burlesque dancers, fire-eaters, magicians and more, if you enjoy something a little risqué this show is definitely for you. I loved it and what a fabulous night out in London!

Fire Eating at Cafe de Paris, London.

Next week I have to try to squeeze in taking my car to a local garage for a full valet, it’s the premium service and costs £45 normally so I’m looking forward to having my car just like new! So with these experiences out-of-the-way I can get on with winning some more to enjoy later in the year. As you can probably tell eating out, and attending events and experiences, are prizes that especially appeal to me.

If you follow me on Facebook you will know I’ve had my first BIG win of the year. A Surface Pro 2 from Currys PC World, worth £799. I’m especially pleased with this win as it is my first ever on Pinterest, an easy repin to win. It’s inspired me to keep entering competitions on that platform. Something about firsts this month as I also had my first ever Instagram win, a Calvin Klein iPad case from Superdrug – for which I simply had to like their status. From Virgin Experiences I won a meal for 2 with wine at Brasserie Blanc by leaving a comment on a Facebook post. Very pleased with my wins so far this year totally over £1200.

Don’t agree with voting competitions as a rule – but this one from Expedia has an exceedingly good prize to win a pair of first class plane tickets! Would be much appreciated if you could give me a vote, (and if you enter please comment below and I’ll return the favour). Thanks in advance; http://goo.gl/mnsqQF

I found your comments on my New Years Resolutions post really inspiring, so I decided it might be a nice feature of the blog to share some of my wins. I won’t bore you with them all but once or twice a month I’ll send a winspiration!

Towards the end of last year I was lucky to win a competition on twitter from a beauty salon in Sheffield. It was a simple RT & Follow, the prize was for a hair makeover, full set of nails, and a meal and cocktails at a restaurant. I wanted to write about this lovely win from Fruition Salon, City Road, Sheffield as it goes to show, as I always find, how accommodating and helpful prize promotors generally are.

Firstly it took me ages to book in the hair & beauty part of the prize as I was overseas for a month, I changed dates on several occasions. Secondly I was really struggling to get the restaurant part booked in. But always patient and helpful with me the staff at Fruition got me booked in last Saturday, and kindly offered as I was unable to take the meal and cocktails, to give me some goodies instead!

My hair was done by the very warm and friendly Kerri. As I opted not to have a colour she kindly gave me a deep conditioning treatment which my hair was very pleased to receive in these cold winter months. Next I had my nails done and I really felt very spoilt, everyone making a fuss of me and making me feel nothing would be too much. Just as I was about to leave there were a few nudges and winks…… and I was presented with a bottle of wine, (never fails to make a girl smile)……. and a gift box full of goodies from Lush. It was a great day! All the staff at Fruition, both in salon and running the promotion were ever professional. Here I am very pleased with my prize:

Fruition often run competitions over social media, and infact there is one on their facebook page now, so if you live in Sheffield I’m sure they’d be pleased if you give them a like and/or follow:

I have now also had my first wins in 2014. 4 Cabaret tickets & a bottle of champagne to any friday or saturday performance at the Cafe de Paris, London. This comes in very handy as I’m in London to visit friends this month. (I had that in mind when I entered the comp)! It was again a RT & follow on twitter. On facebook I did a like and share competition and won a lovely new bag from the Camouflage company as pictured below. So a prize haul of over £100 already, I’m feeling 2014 is going to be a lucky year!

I’d love to hear from you……. how many wins have you had so far in 2014?

To guess how many prizes I would win in a year. I had estimates ranging from 18 to 365, but in general most people felt I would win 52 times – or once per week. I was very bad and didn’t keep up the log, (or blog), as promised, (hence New Years Resolutions)! So yesterday I went through old emails, facebook messages and twitter mentions.

I found I had won 28 prizes totally a value of £3180.

This isn’t a great amount compared to some of my previous years but I am pleasantly surprised. Remembering I only started the blog in May and had comped very little in the early part of the year, I also spent 2 months overseas during this time, so 28 wins is really for 6 months moderate comping. I’m very happy, (but will still seek to improve this year)! It also shows my readers have great guess work as around 52 wins for the year would have probably been right.

As I mentioned in my original post I don’t enter anything and everything. I do go for the prizes I want. Often I go in for easy to enter competitions on facebook and twitter but I will look for ones with very low entries. Infact 2 of the facebook competitions I won this year I knew I was going to win……. as I was the only entrant! But definately this year I would like to focus more on creative comping, again looking for those low entry competitions thereby increasing your chances to win.

My two biggest wins last year were the trip to London with £500 spending money from Nestle Bueno, and a Caldesi cookery weekend in the Cotswolds worth £1000. I found I was busy coming up to Christmas so didn’t do much except twitter competitions but had a great run winning Ringside seats at a Boxing Match, Lunch & a Falconry experience, £40 Wagamama Vouchers, £50 GBK Vouchers, a Topshop Personal Shopping Experience and much more!

I have yet to have my first win of the year but I do have my spreadsheet all ready to record it when it does happen and of course I shall be sharing my wins. It is really great to keep a record of your wins so you can look back and cheer yourself up in those lean times. Wishing you all a very happy and lucky 2014.

For anyone new to entering competitions, and new to the blog, this typifies comping. Just like buses you win nothing for weeks or months, then a string come along in a short period of time. (I remember one particular lean spell in 2008, I felt like I had won nothing worthwhile for almost a year, then in less than a week I had 3 lovely ‘Congratulation Calls’ with trips booked in to the USA, France, and Austria)!

So you will probably have guessed by now I’ve had another win! I must reprimand myself as this DM came in on twitter yesterday. Just imagine if it had been to collect tickets for a prize this weekend, I might have missed out. If you are a comper, do check your emails everyday. Also, every and now and again check your spam. I did in 2010…… and found a WEM for a trip to Australia! The winning DM;

The competition was on Twitter and it was a simple RT & follow. A small prize which I only entered as this is a shopping village very local to me. In general, I do enter less free prize draws now and try to focus on skill competitions. But, it’s so quick and easy to RT & follow! This was the competition tweet and you can see I also favourited it;

I was planning on shopping over Bank Holiday weekend so I look forward to finding some bargains, and then taking a break with a relaxing drink, before getting on the hunt for more bargains! Thank you very much to Costa Coffee, and Lakeside Village, Doncaster for picking me as a lucky winner.

If you want to start entering competitions on twitter, but don’t know where to find them, you can always follow my personal account @MeSueYouWho, which is here; www.twitter.com/mesueyouwho

Well, would you believe it……… I’ve only gone and received a WEM today. For those of you that are non-compers this is a Winning Email, (note to self; post on competition terms would be useful).

A trip to London with £500 spending money, I don’t mind if I do! It was totally out of the blue and put a very big smile on my face. I have felt that these past few months I have been neglecting my comping hobby, and I couldn’t even remember entering the competition to be honest! When I received the email, I thought straight away what great news to share on the blog. And then I thought….. wouldn’t it be interesting to see how many competitions I actually win in a year? When I first started comping I used to keep a log of all entries and wins, I was very efficient. But over the years I’ve changed computers and juggled jobs, and sadly got out of the habit.

Now I resolve to notify you of all my wins, I think it will be rather fun to see how many ‘entries’ I get up to. I have started the year from when I made my first post which was actually 2 days ago. The WEM for your perusal;

I did a google search to find the competition I had entered. I was most surprised to find, (given the quality of the prize), that I was infact a runner-up!

You and a friend could soon be seeing more of the world in style – when you enter our competition to visit one of three amazing fashion capitals.

Grand Prize:3 x 3 night trips to New York, Milan or Paris for two people including return standard economy flights and accommodation in a 4* hotel to be won.

Of course, fashion’s ‘big four’ are rightfully led by London. And we wouldn’t dream of running a competition without offering the chance to grab a little of our capital’s diverse style.

Which is why 10 runners up will each win a London shopping weekend for 2, with £500 spending money.Includes return standard economy train tickets to London for the winner and their guest, overnight accommodation in a 4* hotel.

And the next 100 entries drawn win a £50 Love2Shop voucher.

The competition was a simple prize draw, I only had to complete my name and contact details and the closing date was 30.04.13.

Now! Can I just have a little ‘get out clause’ on my Prize Log. When I first started comping I did, (I hold my hand up guys), enter ANYTHING and EVERYTHING going. But after finding myself receiving items such as a bicycle repair kit, (when I do not even have a bike), and also time factors. I made the decision to just go for prizes I really wanted. I do win less, but I win MORE of what I want to win.

Everyone has their own opinions on this, its sometimes nice to give away unwanted prizes as gifts, or even sell them on. I used to give away lots of tickets when I worked full time as I couldn’t always leave early, or take time off for concerts at short notice. It did make me popular amongst my friends and it was lovely to hear their stories. The Comping Fairy brings joy wherever she sprinkles her fairy dust!

Here’s to a successful blogging and comping year, why not leave a comment with your best guess as to how many wins I will be at on 21/05/14.